In memoriam, 2018

Let us remember those we lost in 2018:

Paul Allen, 65, American businessman and co-founder of Microsoft.

Stanley Anderson, 78, American actor who played the President in both "The Rock" and "Armageddon".

Kofi Annan, 80, Ghanaian diplomat, Secretary-General of the United Nations (1997–2006), Nobel Prize laureate (2001).

Captain Alan LaVern Bean, USN Ret., 86, American naval officer, naval aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. The the fourth person to walk on the Moon.

Ken Berry, 85, American actor, "F Troop".

David Bischoff, 66, American novelist and television writer "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episodes "Tin Man" and "First Contact".

Steven Bochco, 74, 10-time Emmy winning American television producer and writer "Hill Street Blues", "L.A. Law", "NYPD Blue".

Anthony Bourdain, 61, Four time Emmy winning American chef, author and television host

Jim Bowen, 80, English television presenter and comedian, "Bullseye".

Peter Brace, 94, British actor and stuntman, "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Batman", "Highlander" and Peter Mayhew's stunt double in "Star Wars".

Staff Sgt. Russell Brown, USA Ret., 96, 82nd Airborne Division. Made every combat jump during World War II.

Barbara Bush, 92, American political matriarch, First Lady (1989–1993) and Second Lady (1981–1989).

President George H. W. Bush, 94, American politician, President (1989–1993), Vice President (1981–1989), Director of Central Intelligence (1976–1977).

Montserrat Caballé, 85, Spanish opera singer, "Barcelona" w. Freddie Mercury.

Joseph Campanella, 93, American actor "Mannix", "Silent Running", "Meteor".

Frank Carlucci, 87, American politician, Secretary of Defense (1987–1989), National Security Advisor (1986–1987).

Bunny Carr, 91, Irish television presenter (Quicksilver).

Debbie Lee Carrington, 58, American actress and stunt woman "Return of the Jedi", "Total Recall".

Reg E. Cathey, 59, Emmy winning American actor "House of Cards", "Luke Cage".

Colonel Joseph Gordon Clemons, Jr. USA Ret., 90, American soldier, subject of "Pork Chop Hill".

A1C Adrian Cronauer, USAF Ret., 79, American disc jockey, subject of "Good Morning, Vietnam".

L-R: Professor Stephen Hawking, Margot Kidder, John Mahoney

Steve Ditko, 90, American comic book writer and artist "Spider-Man", "Doctor Strange"
Sir Ken Dodd, 90, English comedian.
Rear Admiral Alene Duerk, USN Ret., 98, American Navy admiral, first female admiral in U.S.Navy.
John M. Dwyer, 83, Oscar/Emmy nominated American set decorator, "Star Trek", "Star Trek: The Next Generation" movies "Star Trek IV, V, Generations, First Contact, Insurrection" and "Nemesis".
Ssgt. (Hon GnySgt.) R. Lee Ermey, USMC Ret., 74, American drill  instructor and actor "Full Metal Jacket", "Toy Story"
Carlos Ezquerra, 70, Spanish comics artist,"Judge Dredd", "Strontium Dog"
Michael D. Ford, 90, Oscar winning English art director and set decorator "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "The Empire Strikes Back".
Miloš Forman, 86, Oscar winning Czech-American film director, "Amadeus".
Gary Friedrich, 75, American comic book writer, "Captain Marvel", "Iron Man" #45–46, co-creator of "Ghost Rider".
Aretha Franklin, 76, 18 time Grammy winning American Hall of Fame singer, "Respect"
William Goldman, 87, Oscar winning American author "The Princess Bride" and screenwriter "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".
Leslie "Dirty Den" Grantham, 71, English actor "EastEnders" and convicted murderer.
Korvettenkapitän Reinhard Hardegen, 105, German U-boat commander (Battle of the Atlantic).
Stephen Hawking, 76, English theoretical physicist, professor (University of Cambridge) and writer "A Brief History of Time".
Brig. Gen. Anna Mae Hays, USA Ret., 97, American military officer and nurse, first female U.S. General.

L-R: Derrick O'Connor, Tim O'Connor, David Ogden Stiers

Tom Jago, 93, British liquor executive and distiller, creator of Baileys Irish Cream.

Jóhann Jóhannsson, 48, Icelandic film composer, "Arrival".

Mickey Jones, 76, American drummer and actor.

Ingvar Kamprad, 91, Swedish retail furniture-home design executive and philanthropist, founder of IKEA.

Gloria Katz, 76, American screenwriter and film producer, "American Graffiti", "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", "Best Defense".

Margot Kidder, 69, Canadian-American actress, "Superman"

Richard H. Kline, 91, American cinematographer, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture".

Sonny Knowles, 86, Irish singer.

Charles Krauthammer, 68, Pulitzer Prize winning American political commentator (Fox News) and writer (The Washington Post).

Gary Kurtz, 78, American film producer, "American Graffiti", "Star Wars".

Stan Lee, 95, American comic book writer and publisher (Marvel Comics).

Sondra Locke, 74, American actress, "The Outlaw Josey Wales", "Sudden Impact".

John Mahoney, 77, English-American actor, "Frasier".

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, 81, South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, MP.

Al Matthews, 75, American actor, "Sgt. Apone" in "Aliens".

Bill Maynard, 89, English actor

Sen. John McCain, 81, American politician and Navy officer, member of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Chuck McCann, 83, American voice actor, "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero", "Iron Man".

Capt. Ernest Medina, USA Ret., 81, American army officer, commander of unit responsible for the My Lai Massacre.

Donald Moffat, 87, British-born American actor, "The Thing", "Clear and Present Danger", "License to Kill".

Derrick O'Connor, 77, Irish actor, "Lethal Weapon 2", "Daredevil".

Tim O'Connor, 90, American actor, "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century"

William O'Connor, 47, American artist, "Dungeons & Dragons", "Magic: The Gathering".

David Ogden Stiers, 75, American actor "M*A*S*H".

L-R: Soon-Tek Oh, Donnelly Rhodes, John Young

Soon-Tek Oh, 85, South Korean-American actor, "The Man with the Golden Gun", "Missing in Action 2", "Death Wish 4", "The Muta-Do" in "Babylon 5".

Dolores O'Riordan, 46, Irish singer and guitarist, "The Cranberries".

Richard Arvin Overton, 112, American super-centenarian, oldest living World War II veteran in U.S.

Roger Perry, 85, American actor "Star Trek" episode "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" as "Captain John Christopher".

Burt Reynolds, 82, Emmy winning American actor, "Smokey and the Bandit", "Boogie Nights".

Donnelly Rhodes, 80, Canadian actor, ""Doc" Cottle" in "Battlestar Galactica (2004)".

Robert Scheerer, 89, Emmy nominated American director, "Star Trek: The Next Generation", "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and "Star Trek: Voyager".

Frank Serafine, 65, American sound designer and editor, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", "Tron", "The Hunt for Red October".

Marie Severin, 89, American Hall of Fame comic book artist, "Iron Man"#82–83, 85 (inker), #108 (colorist), G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero" #28 (penciller), co-creator of Spider-Woman.

Jon Paul Steuer, 33, American actor "Alexander" in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Reunion".

Dudley Sutton, 85, British actor, "Lovejoy".

Verne Troyer, 49, American actor, "Austin Powers".

Dame June Whitfield, 93, English actress, "Terry and June".

Scott Wilson, 76, American actor, "The Walking Dead".

Celeste Yarnall, 74, American actress, "Yeoman Martha Landon" in the "Star Trek" episode "The Apple".

Capt John Young, USN Ret. 87, American astronaut (Apollo 16, STS-1).

May they rest in peace.

RIP Colonel Abrams

It's with great regret that I must report the death of a fellow '80's veteran who answered the call to wear a uniform. Colonel Abrams, a true pioneer of house and dance music in the 1980s, has died at the age of 67.

The Colonel scored his biggest hit in 1985 with the club single "Trapped," which reached number three in the UK. Although Abrams had no American pop hits through his career, he had a number of entries on the US Hot Dance Club Play chart in the 1980s and 1990s, including four entries that hit number one.

It was reported last year that the Colonel had been homeless and suffered from diabetes.

May he rest in peace.

James Horner 1953 - 2015

James Horner [61], one of the most prolific film score composers of the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s tragically lost his life yesterday in an aircraft accident.

He was best known as the composer for two of the world's highest grossing films, Titanic and Avatar - both of which earned him Oscar nods, a win in the case of Titanic as well as it's song “My Heart Will Go On”. He would receive another 7 Oscar and three BAFTA nominations as well as winning two Golden Globes, three Saturn Awards and three Satellite Awards throughout his career.

Horner had little issue composing scores for impressive works in the field of motion pictures such as Glory and Braveheart, family favourites like Jumanji and Casper, period epics like Troy and Legends of the Fall, balls-out action movies like Commando and Red Heat, for animated movies including The Land Before Time and An American Tail, comedy such as Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Hocus Pocus, thrillers including Ransom and Patriot Games and even for comic-book heroes The Rocketeer and The Amazing Spider-Man. With over 100 scores under his belt he was one of few composers who catered for everybody and any type of movie.

In an interview in 2010, Horner said that scoring Avatar was the toughest assignment he had taken on and he needed time to get it out of his system, so he had done little of note since but he was collaborating with James Cameron in providing music for the director's Avatar sequels over the course of the next few years.

Horner was one of the first composers whose work I listened to daily. His compositions along with those of John Williams, Danny Elfman and the late Jerry Goldsmith were the four cornerstones of my musical tastes for many years. Among my favourites from Horner are Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan [‘82], Aliens [‘86], Willow [‘87], The Rocketeer [‘91], Braveheart [‘94], Apollo 13 [‘94], The Mask of Zorro [‘98] and Enemy at the Gates [‘00].

Horner was often mocked for lifting sequences and musical motifs - as well as almost entire segments from one of his own scores and adapting them to fit the musical scores of other movies he was assigned to. Throughout the years his audience became more accepting of this quirk and when recognised upon listening it can only bring a smile to the face of his true fans.

Many of Horner's detractors were critical of his use of the works of classical music composers such as Orff, Elgar and Wagner and labelled his works as derivative - but if anything he spotlighted the works of the classical greats he admired and cherished the works of, and helped them to be discovered by successive generations. I have no doubt that in the future, composers of scores will even use Horner's own cues in the same way he did, and make it part of their work as a homage and  as they take us on a new musical journey of their making.

Thank you James Horner for over 100 gifts to us over the years and may you rest in peace.

I won't miss him this time.

One can count the number of live appearances of one Hans Florian Zimmer on their fingers even if they're missing some. Needless to say it's a pretty rare occurrence. He has done a select few live events over the years usually as publicity pieces for movies he's scored. 

In 2000 he did a live concert at the Flanders Music Festival in Ghent, Belgium which was deemed quite remarkable for the lucky folk who attended. That event was captured on "Wings of a Film" an album made from the performance.

I was pretty shocked to see him on Saturday Night Live earlier in the year with Pharell Williams who worked with Zimmer on his Amazing Spider-Man 2 score and Zimmer did another live event with whom he dubbed The Sinister Six, the musicians who helped create the songs and sounds of the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack including The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr.

I believe I have a CD or MP3 copy of every commercially available piece of music that Zimmer has scored on as well as plenty that's not publicly available so I'd be considered a true fan. He's without a single doubt the living musician I most admire.

So when he announced a concert series to debut in London in October, I vowed not to miss him again and I already have my ticket for his first performance.

A prophecy unfulfilled, Williams returns for Star Wars VII, but is this good?

Following the release of the score to Star Wars, Episode II: Attack Of The Clones in 2002 a like-minded score enthusiast friend asked me what would happen if John Williams had to be replaced for Episode III due to his unfortunate death or ill health [after all Williams was 70 at the time] and who could do his job? Despite it being unfathomable to such a die-hard fan like myself who has even made Star Wars the basis for his spiritual beliefs for anyone else to score Star Wars, I always have had my eye on the future and without any hesitation at all I offered a single name in response to his question: Michael Giacchino.

My friend laughed at me. To be fair, his reaction was not unjustified; at the time Giacchino wasn't even a 'name' among the film score community. Much like Jeremy Soule, Inon Zur and Bill Brown he was only known to video-game score enthusiasts as he was responsible for most of the scores for the Medal Of Honor franchise as well as the first scores for Call Of Duty. As great as all that music was for video games, there must have been over 200 top names in a movie-producer's Rolodex between David Arnold and Hans Zimmer all of whom would be far more experienced to score a motion picture than any video-game music composer, therefore my choice was branded as "idiotic".

But a lot has happened since then and now in just over 10 years Giacchino was put just a single step away from actually scoring Star Wars VII, turning an formerly idiotic answer into what seems now like a prophecy of biblical proportions.

Micheal Giacchino has now actually become one of the most prolific composers in modern cinema. He used scores for animated comedies like Ratatouille as a stepping stone to score live action pictures like the abysmal Speed Racer. He is praised for his work on The Incredibles and critics agree that his score is the only redeemable element of the otherwise woeful Land of the Lost.

Giacchino won the coveted Academy Award for Best Original Score for Up in 2010 as well as numerous Grammys, Golden Globes and has received additional nominations for Grammy's and Emmy's. As impressive as all these credentials are, they alone are not enough to put him even close to Star Wars VII, for that we must look elsewhere.

First of all Giacchino has a long history with new Star Wars/Lucasfilm overlords Disney. Originally he worked at their publicity department in NYC, and then LA. From there, he went over to Disney Interactive as an assistant producer. Years after later working for Dreamworks he scored Disney's Sky High, The Muppet's Wizard of Oz and more recently the megaflop John Carter as well as several Pixar films. In 2005 Giacchino collaborated with Walt Disney Imagineering in creating two new soundtracks for the updated versions of Space Mountain at Disneyland, Space Mountain: Mission 2 at Disneyland Paris, and Space Mountain at Hong Kong Disneyland. His music can also be heard in Star Tours: The Adventure Continues during the "travel log videos" shown in the cue line for the attraction.

As strong as the bond between Disney and Giacchino is, it alone wasn't enough to warrant them granting him probably one of the most profound projects in cinematic history. Even the fact that Giacchino composted magnificent scores to two LucasArts published video-games, Secret Weapons Over Normandy and Mercenaries wouldn't come into play. The final piece of this puzzle is in fact the visionary director J.J. Abrams!

It's an easily researched fact that some directors and producers favour certain composers. They may be friends with them, or the composers may have a special understanding with the directors that almost breathes musical life into the director's creative vision and create perfection through collaboration. When Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich were partners, David Arnold always had a job. Since 1999 M. Night Shyamalan uses only James Newton Howard. When Martin Scorcese wants an original score he has turned only to Howard Shore since about 1999. And most remarkably only four out of all the movies ever directed by Steven Spielberg were not scored by John Williams.

In the same vein as this director/composer collaboration, Abrams has used Giacchino in almost everything he's produced on Television since their first collaboration on Alias in 2001. Giacchino's only Television work to date has been for Abrams and includes music and themes for long running series Lost and Fringe. Most notably, Giacchino has scored all of the movies Abrams has ever directed and almost all of what he has produced, providing a brand fresh new soundscape for the rebooted Star Trek franchise as well as redefining Mission: Impossible's score in his own musical idiom.

When Abrams bagged the Star Wars VII gig, it put Giacchino in a position where it became an 'educated presumption' that he would in fact score the new Star Wars trilogy and fulfill perhaps my greatest prophecy. The only fly in this ointment was the fact that Giacchino himself didn't want to do it. In an interview in May he said in response to hypothetically being offered Star Wars:

"I would say, 'I don't want to do it'... From day one, I have said I hope John [Williams] does it. Selfishly, I want to hear more 'Star Wars' music and I want to hear what he would do with it. He's been an incredible teacher over the years to me, he's a friend and he's one of the best composers on Earth. I want him to do it. That's the way it should go."

Giacchino will get his wish. At the weekend, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told a Star Wars convention in Germany that John Williams would return to score Star Wars: Episode VII. Williams said in an interview with StarWars.com that he was "happy to be continuing to be part of the whole fun" of the franchise. He hinted he would likely use some of the music from previous films. "I haven't seen the script, so the story is still unknown to me, but I can't image there will not be some references to the existing stories that would make appropriate use of some of the earlier themes," he said.

While I'm certainly not unhappy with the news, I am hoping that there has not been a missed opportunity to do something new. I don't like change but I'm not blind to the passage of time and so I'm somewhat apprehensive. Williams is now 81 years old and has sadly only produced turgid crap in the past decade [outside Revenge of the Sith obviously]. His music has become almost indistinguishable from one project to the next - Lincoln, War Horse, War of the Worlds, Munich are prime examples of a once great old man losing his touch. Even the score to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull seemed jaded in comparison to previous installments.

To be honest, I'd understand and support Williams decision to rest on his impressive unequalled laurels and thank him for the the years of joy he brought us with his wonderful compositions for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman, Jaws and even fucking Harry Pothead! Instead he's probably signed a contract that will have him working for Disney until Star Wars IX in 2019 at which point the man will be... sweet Lucas he'll be 87!!! Perhaps my Giacchino prophecy is just "delayed" as opposed to "unfulfilled".

Joel Goldsmith 1957-2012

It's with regret that I must announce the passing of  Joel Goldsmith, TV, Film and Video Game music composer and eldest son of the legendary Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith [54] died of cancer on Sunday, at his home in Hidden Hills, California.

Goldsmith's early work was deep into the electronic range of the late 70's early 80's and he earned his mark as an arranger for composer Richard Band before scoring The Man With Two Brains in '83. His father had him produce Jerry's first electronic score Runaway in '84. Their collaboration included some 20 minutes of additional music for Jerry's sublime score to Star Trek: First Contact in 1996. Among the other movies which benefit from his work are Moon 44 from 1990 which was his first symphonic score and Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence ['93] but Kull the Conqurer ['97] with a big, bold symphonic score is probably his best known movie work.

He was one of the first well known movie and TV composers to make the jump to video games when they began to cease using 16-bit audio when he scored the TCN News reports for the cutscenes for Tom Clancy's SSN for Simon and Schuster Interactive. He later scored Call of Duty 3 in 2006.

Later in his career Joel turned to TV scoring having dabbled with The Untouchables series from 1993 and The Outer Limits in 1997. He found his niche and international fame when he supplemented David Arnold's Stargate theme for the Stargate: SG-1 TV series pilot in 1997 and was kept on for 10 seasons scoring 217 episodes between 1997 and 2007. He also composed the theme and episodic music for both Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate: Universe and the Stargate: SG-1 DTV movies.

Joel Goldsmith sadly needed more time to leave the mark his father did on music as a whole but his life was tragically cut short before he could get there. If any of you heard his deeply emotional and atmospheric music from Stargate: Universe you will know he was at a turning point in his creativity and was on the road to true brilliance. Nonetheless he can rest rest in peace knowing that his contributions, especially to science fiction fans will live on. We don't forget people easily.

Video of a Bear playing the piano

Composer Bear McCreary, a student of Elmer Bernstein, composed the music for every episode of Battlestar Galactica after it went to series in 2004 until its finale in 2009.

McCreary has just published a piano book of some of his work on the show which includes "Prelude to War" from Season 2, my favourite track of his. He even made a video of it for his blog and it's well worth a listen [even if you don't watch] especially if you're familiar with the fully orchestral version of the piece.

If you're not impressed - take the time to realise he's not reading the sheet music!

John Barry 1933 - 2011 R.I.P.

The legendary English film score composer John Barry Prendergast, OBE died on Sunday at age 77, from a heart attack.

Barry began playing the piano at age 9 and later trained as a classical pianist. He was however more drawn to jazz and loved playing the trumpet. He began composing as a bandsman in Cyprus and Egypt and began arranging music for his band, The John Barry Seven before debuting as score composer/conductor in 1960 for Beat Girl.

Over his 50 year career John Barry received 5 Oscars [with 2 additional nominations], a BAFTA award [with 2 additional nominations], a Golden Globe [with 10 additional nominations] and a Grammy [with 2 additional nominations] for composing the scores to Born Free, The Lion in Winter, Midnight Cowboy, Out of Africa, Dances with Wolves, Chaplin and Mary, Queen of Scots.

John Barry also composed the scores for Zulu, The Ipcress File, The Deep, Game Of Death, Starcrash, The Black Hole, Jagged Edge, Indecent Proposal, The Specialist, Mercury Rising and Enigma to name but a few of his some 100 movie scores. Among his many TV themes were of course the Born Free TV series and the Roger Moore & Tony Curtis action show, The Persuaders!

Barry was best known however, as the man who composed most of the scores for the James Bond series of movies. The producers of Dr. No in 1962 were so dissatisfied with Monty Norman's James Bond theme that they had Barry re-arrange it. Authorship of the theme would later be called into question following a Sunday Times article crediting Barry with the theme and it even went to court in 2001. The courts subsequently granted sole compositional credit and royalties to Norman, but Barry has publicly defended his authorship of the theme in subsequent years but never challenged the registration of the songwriting credit with the Performing Right Society.

When the Bond producers discovered their choice to score From Russia with Love, Lionel Bart could not read music; they again turned to Barry to help them out and thus began his tenure with 007 scoring 11 of the first 14 James Bond adventures. In From Russia With Love he introduced us to "007" an alternate Bond theme which is as memorable as Norman's own and appears in four other movies in the series. He excelled at bringing "big band" brassy music to Bond highlighting his own jazz roots especially in Goldfinger, but as he matured he became both more melodic for Moonraker and contemporary in A View to a Kill, before embracing a remarkably more modern effort for his final Bond score, The Living Daylights. In 1997 he gave his blessing to his successor whom he so obviously influenced, David Arnold who has since composed the music for the 5 most recent Bond movies using a highly stylised form of many of Barry's themes and motifs.

Barry is survived by his fourth wife Laurie, son Jonpatrick, and three daughters; Susie, Sian and Kate and grandchildren.

Born Free and Diamonds Are Forever lyricist Don Black said: "When he played you a melody it was like an unveiling. You didn't question it because you knew he had been up all night working on it and getting it right."

The 82nd Oscars

The 82nd Oscar’s were held during my absence. As last year's ceremony was exceptional I took it upon my self to watch it again this year. I didn’t see the recording of the event until my return, so now I can share my thoughts.

Firstly, I thought Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin's hosting was pretty good - but not as good as Hugh Jackman's last year. Strangely they didn't do their own opening number, this was instead provided by Neil Patrick Harris, which while adequate, also fell short of Jackman's effort last year. Martin and Baldwin's hand offs and jibes against each other were funny but it seemed a lot more subtle and controlled than usual, something was lacking...

There were a couple of good presentation moments, Tina Fey reprising her "role" from last year, but now partnered with the equally amusing Robert Downey Jr. to read paragraphs from and present the Oscar for screenwriting. However even their performance was overshadowed by Ben Stiller's appearance which delivered whoops of laughter from the audience. Last year you'll recall his "Joaquin Phoenix" bit, but this year he presented himself in full make-up as a Na'vi. When the initial laughter had died down, he delivered a paragraph in the Na'vi language and was generally Ben Stiller shaming himself until he presented those responsible for the Make-Up effects on Star Trek with their well deserved award. Watch the full 4.5 min bit on Youtube.

As for the awards themselves; it was very nice to see Jeff Bridges to finally get an Oscar after 4 previous nominations [but was he a little drunk, stoned or both? See his speech about 8:16 into this from Youtube]. It was also nice to see Sandra Bullock get her first Oscar especially considering her fellow nominees included Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep.

I mentioned Christopher Waltz' stellar performance in my Inglorious Basterds review. While nominated for some other awards – only Waltz really deserved an Oscar for that movie and thankfully the Academy ultimately recognised that..

Micheal Giacchino, a popular video game music composer who turned to TV and later - the silver screen was up against some intense competition from both Hans Zimmer and James Horner this year but the Star Trek movie and Lost TV show composer earned his first Oscar [following a recent BAFTA win] for his enchanting score to the animated movie Up.

The big news of the evening was of course the battle between The Hurt Locker and Avatar. I gave both movies 5 stars but clearly the Academy felt that Kathryn Bigelow's numerous military-related mistakes which I pointed out to them in Hurt Locker were less than the grave error James Cameron made by not including a script with Avatar, and let’s be honest here: they’re right.

In the end, The Hurt Locker took 6 Oscars for it's Screenplay, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Editing, Director and of course the most coveted Best Picture award. Avatar's 3 awards were mainly technical for Cinematography, Art Direction and Visual Effects which were all deserved as Avatar is indeed the greatest cinematic technology demo of all time.

It's still a shock to me however that the Academy choose to recognise Kathryn Bigalow, the first woman to win Best Director over Tarantino, Up's Reitman, "King" Cameron himself and also for only the second time in history, an African American - Lee Daniels. I was full sure that Cameron had it in the bag, but I'm thrilled that Bigalow won it for a brutal war-movie and not some "wishy-washy" tear-jerker, historical epic, true story or costume drama.

Overall I was shocked in a way by the trouncing that The Hurt Locker gave Avatar – don’t get me wrong - I agree with the awards and Hurt Locker was clearly deserving of all it got but I didn’t expect the Academy to actually deliver the respect to the movie it clearly deserved. It was refreshing to see people from so many movies actually worthy of Oscars than those normally nominated, namely: The Hurt Locker, Avatar, District 9, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes and Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen. Long may this trend of recognising "real" movies continue.

I think I've seen everything worthy of my own accolades from 2009 myself now so I'll soon deliver the 5th Whopper Awards and a special The Whoppers Of The Decade soon enough.

Non-Gimp Whiplash and Achingly Sexy Black Widow to be scored by Debney! It's the Iron Man 2 News Hour!

Time for some Iron Man news now as it's the most anticipated movie of the next decade.

Some new character shots have been revealed recently, the one of Mickey Rourke as the classic Iron Man villain Whiplash.

For some reason I can't fathom, many fans were upset with this depiction of Whiplash not being enough like his comic-book appearance. To those clowns I ask - Whiplash has appeared in both of the costumes below in the comic books - which did you want? The Gimp-Mask or the Feather Plume?

Despite having Mickey Rourke cement his magnificent comeback started by The Wrestler last year in an almost Travoltaesque fashion, there were far more and certainly lecherous eyes [my own included] to see what Miss Scarlett Johannson would be sporting for her Iron Man 2 fashion collection as the Black Widow.

Sweet mother of Lucas! I don't think straight male on the planet has a single issue with a flame haired Scarlett sewn into chafingly tight leather almost identical to her comic-book counterpart. Whooa Momma!!!

On a final note this evening about Iron Man 2, I was delighted to learn today that Favreau's composer on both Zathura and Elf, John Debney would assume the scoring duties for shellhead's sequel, and I'm suitably impressed. Debney has not got the chance to score too many good movies, in almost 10 years since End Of Days and The Scorpion King. However I hope that his work on Iron Man 2 will somehow fuse his modern work on The Tuxedo with the passion he obviously had for his greatest work ever Cutthroat Island - the definitive Pirate-Movie score [although hardly the definitive Pirate Movie]. I originally hoped for Debney for the original Iron Man considering his past collaboration with Fav, but for whatever reason the job went to one of Hans Zimmer's crew, the Prison Break composer Ramin Djawadi who, although provided a hard and suitable score for Iron Man, it lacked the thematic content demanded by a super-hero movie. Hopefully Debney will correct that.

Iron Man 2 opens May 7th 2010

Source: Joblo, AICN

Bond's newest song

The delectable Alicia (Smokin' Aces) Keys and some scruffy yobbo called Jack White took over from the self destructive wreck of Amy Winehouse to record Another Way To Die, the theme song for the newest James Bond adventure: Quantum Of Solace.

White wrote, produced, plays the drums and sings with Keys in the first duet as Bond title song.

I don't think it's as good as Chris Cornell's effort for Casino Royale, but I'll wait to see it in the context of the movie before passing final judgment.

You can listen to it yourself here: http://www.thirdmanrecords.com/

Isaac Hayes & Bernie Mac: Double Obituary

The world lost two talented bruthas' this weekend in the form of hilarious comedian Bernie Mac and the soul legend Isaac Hayes.

Bernie Mac, born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough in Chicago, Illinois was a stand-up comedian before making many notable acting appearances in both Television and the silver screen. Most notable among them were roles in Ocean's 11, 12 & 13 and the multi award-winning The Bernie Mac Show.

Bernie Mac is forever immortalised in the greatest movie of the decade - Transformers where he lends his comedic genius to Micheal Bay as Bobby Bolivia the car salesman that sold Bumblebee to Sam.

Mac went into hospital in Aug 1st with pneumonia. Unfortunately he died as a result of complications on Aug 9th. He was 50.

Isaac Hayes, born Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. in Covington, Tennessee was a soul and funk singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, arranger, composer, and actor.

His notable acting appearances include, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Stargate SG-1 but he'll be most remembered in this field for giving life to the soul-singing school cafeteria worker Chef on the long running adult animated series South Park.

Among Hayes' best known musical works are Soul Man (1967) which he wrote with David Porter for the duo Sam & Dave. In early 1971, he composed music for the soundtrack for Shaft for which he won an Academy Award for the Theme from Shaft, and was also nominated for Best Original Dramatic Score. Many years later in 1999 his association with South Park generated a hit song Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S. I Love You), which reached number-one on both the UK and the Irish singles chart.

Sadly in 1995, Hayes embraced Scientology and started to go a bit nuts. He appeared in nut-job Scientology films and created some Scientology music over the years.

On March 20, 2006, Roger Friedman of Fox News reported that Hayes had suffered a stroke in January. Hayes' spokeswoman Amy Harnell denied that Hayes had had a stroke, but on October 26, 2006 Hayes himself confirmed that he did, (this is to be used to confirm universally that everything on Fox News is actually the truth, even if denied).

On August 10th Hayes' wife found him on the floor near a treadmill at his home in Memphis, Tennessee. The cause of death was not immediately known. He was 65.

In what will be seen as one of the greatest coincidences of the 21st century: Both Bernie Mac AND Isaac Hayes will appear with Samuel L. Jackson in the new film Soul Men, due out in November. Spooky!

Star Wars Rap

Blasphemous: Yes.
Funny: Yes.

Obituary: Shirley Walker

Another great musical talent has been extinguished. Shirley Walker, composer of much of the music from Batman's animated adventures, the Final Destination movies has died of an aneurysm at age 61.

Walker was the first woman to receive sole composing credit on a Hollywood studio picture, on Memoirs of an Invisible Man in 1992 and won a Daytime Emmy for her work on the animated Batman series.

Once a piano soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, Walker's first credit was as a synthesizer player on Apocalypse Now. She went on to work as a conductor and orchestrator for Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer, working on such features as Days Of Thunder, Batman, Dick Tracy and Backdraft.

She wrote robust themes for sci-fi, action and superhero series, including Batman Beyond, Spawn and Space: Above and Beyond. In 1996, she scored John Carpenter's futuristic action film Escape From L.A. and a year later, Robert Butler's Turbulance.

For me, Walker will be best known for one of the greatest scores to an animated motion picture- Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm where she rewrote Batman's theme and created a whole language for her choir to sing:- their own names and the names of Warner Bros. executives backwards.

Ryan Keaveney has an excellent resource including sound clips for Shirley Walker here.

The Great Basil Poledouris 1945 - 2006

Basil Poledouris, one of my favourite film-music composers has died of cancer aged 61.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Poledouris used to sit in services, enthralled with the choir's sound. At age 7 he began piano lessons, and later enrolled at the University of Southern California to study both film and music.

Poledouris became renowned for his powerfully epic style of orchestral composition and his intricate thematic designs, and garnered attention for his scores. My favourites include Conan the Barbarian (1982), Conan the Destroyer (1984), RoboCop (1987), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Wind (1992), Hot Shots: Part Deux (1993) and Starship Troopers (1997) .

The man is gone but his legacy will last forever. Enjoy this Youtube video of his greatest theme: "Anvil Of Crom" from Conan The Barbarian.

Giacchino to score next Trek

It shouldn't come as a shock to anyone that longtime J.J. Abrams collaborator and composer of the music for his Alias and Lost series; Michael Giacchino, will be composing the score for Abrams' Star Trek XI.

The composer says he is only starting to think about how he will approach the forthcoming score for next installment of the Sci-Fi franchise. Speaking at the release party for the Lost Season Two DVD, Giacchino said, "it's kind of on the distant radar. I know they're working on it. [But] it is so far away we haven't even discussed it yet."

He further speculated that he could approach the Star Trek XI score in the same way he did the music for Mission: Impossible III, which referenced that franchises previous films and TV series, he said that he may cherry-pick some of the cues that he likes and discard others. "I think that ultimately you might pick the theme that you think is the important one and utilize that in a certain way and then go completely somewhere else with it,". I guess so long as he doesn't misuse the work of the late Jerry Goldsmith everything will be allright.

But everything will be allright; My first embrace of Giacchino's pheonomenal work was while playing Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault. It was easily one of the greatest scores for a computer game ever composed, and that still holds true today. The Incredibles was the first motion picture to benefit from the composers talent and the success of the score for M:I-3 and for Abrams hit TV shows ensures that Giacchino will play with the big boys from now on.

I often apply the same disaster-senario to projects in the entertainment industry as I do with National Security and once speculated on what would happen if John Williams tragically died before composing Revenge Of The Sith- the answer: Micheal Giacchino.

Source: IGN, Trek Today, Yahoo

Zimmer being sued

The prince of modern film scoring, German born Hans Zimmer is being sued by the Holst Foundation over claims that the Oscar-nominated score for Gladiator is a copy of the late Gustav Holst's famous "Planet Suite."

If the foundation win their claim for infringement of copyright they could make millions of dollars, because sales of the film's soundtrack have gone platinum. Despite Zimmer admitting on the album sleeve that he uses "the same language, the same vocabulary, if not the same syntax" as Holst, the music publishers who hold the copyright in Holst's works, J. Curwen & Sons have decided to take legal action.

A Curwen spokesman says, "After a considerable period of discussion between the two parties it has become necessary to ask for the assistance of the courts." The defense lawyer says, "Mr. Zimmer's work on Gladiator is world-renowned and is not in any sense a copy of Mars. Just listening to the two works is enough to tell any listener this claim has no merit."

As for me, I'm intimately familiar with both Holst's magnificent "The Planets: Mars, The Bringer of War" (as I listened to a lot of Classical music before embracing exclusively the music of film scores) and Gladiator which is Zimmer's magnum opus, (thus far) but I can say with certainty that while he has used all the instruments Holst composed for and has them playing as loudly and bombastically as Holst did, the tempo is completely different and is almost alien in difference. The case should be thrown out.